VP marketing Dale Storey is championing roots innovation, mixing experimentation with good old-fashioned consumer insights

It was a conversation with the team at General Mills AOR Cossette in Toronto that sparked the idea that has put the consumer at the heart of Cheerios' Olympic sponsorship activities. One look at the product reveals a linguistic link between the consumer at home and the athlete on the podium: the word "cheer," which could easily be cut out and used as a postcard to send support to an athlete. All that was left to do was to get Canada Post - also an official sponsor - involved to arrange a postage-paid stamp on the package, and create a heartwarming TV spot featuring a young boy and one of Canada's hopes for a figure skating medal this month, Patrick Chan.

"It was such an intrinsic link to the brand, that you just couldn't miss it," says VP marketing Dale Storey. "When you see it you say, now why didn't we do that before, it's just so obvious."
General Mills and Canada Post have extended their partnership to the Games themselves to build a street-level "cheer wall" of the cut-out cards as well as an autograph tent and sampling venue at the Canada Post processing plant on Georgia Street in Vancouver.
As Canada's largest cereal brand, Cheerios was the natural focal point for General Mills' sponsorship of the Games - a sponsor since Nagano in 1998. "Part of the essence of Cheerios is optimism, positivity, encouragement, and those values align perfectly with the Olympics when the Olympics is at its best," says Storey.
For General Mills, the Vancouver 2010 sponsorship activity began last Canada Day with an on-box promotion that sent consumers online to enter a code and select one of 20 amateur athletes to receive a $5 donation from the company on their behalf. Another promotion also drove to online, where consumers could claim a free red t-shirt with athletes' signatures in the shape of the Canadian flag. Storey's team shipped out approximately 400,000 shirts.
"The key success factor in marketing is being able to know a big idea when you see it and not throwing it out if it's not exactly what you thought it was going to be," says Storey, commenting on the feel-good, no-tech "Cheer" concept. "We had a totally different idea of what our Olympic activation was going to be until someone said, wait a minute" - holding his hand over the last three letters in the Cheerios logo - "‘okay, let's play with that!'"
It's the kind of rallying idea that General Mills' retail partners have been cheering for, too, backing up the effort with in-store activations throughout this month. One such program taps into Olympic hockey fervour: top retail locations across Canada are mounting massive displays centred on a live hockey shootout, complete with goalie, stick, puck and prizes customized to the banners.